HDR Band Portrait

motojoe · Mar 25, 2010

A local metal band wanted me to do some shots for them and they like the gritty look of some of my HDR shots. I wouldn't normally turn to HDR for shooting people, but for these guys, I think it worked out...

There are a couple more on my blog here.

Caffler · Mar 25, 2010

pretty tough..:thumbup:

i've never tried that hdr stuff, must give it a go sometime.

do you process in photoshop or do you use other software?

FORCFED · Mar 25, 2010

Try photomatrix. You can DL for free and give it a shot. Unless bought it will watermark your picture but you can atleast see if you like it or not.

motojoe · Mar 25, 2010

@Caffler: This was a 3 shot bracket at 0,+2,-2 shot handheld with my 5D mkii through a 16-35 @ 26mm. Base exposure was 1/400 @ f8 w/ISO400. The captures were combined and tonemapped in Photomatix, processed in PS and fine tuned in LR.

Forcfed is right... just download it and give it a try! When you save your images after tonemapping, there is a check box on the save diaglog to "save your settings." That would be the settings that you use for the sliders during tonemapping. I always save mine just in case I want to go back and reprocess later for some reason.

Since the trial version of Photomatix watermarks your image, once you buy the license you can easily reprocess any of the shots that you created with your saved settings and produce a new copy without watermarks.

Thanks for your comments!

-joe

LahPhotographer · Mar 25, 2010

I just think its freakin cool you did a shoot for a band let a lone the HDR stuff. Looks good.

Caffler · Mar 25, 2010

handheld?

ya don't drink a lot of whiskey then...or maybe ya do :lol:

seriously thanks for the tech info.

kc502 · Mar 26, 2010

That's crazy you did it hand held lol thats pretty impressive. I'm not a fan of hdr for the most party very seldom do people do it where it looks clean and that goes for portraits especially. There is great editing techiques to give it a hdr look but with cleaner results, look up dave hill his stuff reminds me alot of hdr but it's not. I'd suggest if you do want to do HDR is cutting the band out and hdring the background then edit the band seperatly to match the background it should look a lot better imo.

motojoe · Mar 26, 2010

I actually do a lot of day time HDR's handheld. I just take a deep breath and try to be as still as I can... It helps if you can lean on something!

@kc502: You can do a lot with a the high pass filter to get a super contrasty HDR look. Dave Hill's photos are amazing and I think I read that he does extensive adjustments, dodging and burning, etc.

Awesome skill with lighting helps, too... That's something that I know I need to work on!

kc502 · Mar 26, 2010

motojoe said:
I actually do a lot of day time HDR's handheld. I just take a deep breath and try to be as still as I can... It helps if you can lean on something!

@kc502: You can do a lot with a the high pass filter to get a super contrasty HDR look. Dave Hill's photos are amazing and I think I read that he does extensive adjustments, dodging and burning, etc.

Awesome skill with lighting helps, too... That's something that I know I need to work on!

Yeah Dave Hill also shoots each personal seperatly in the photos, I hadtried his style this week in one of my photos, check my post in this thread to see it.

templatephotoshop · Mar 26, 2010

We use high pass alot at the studio. Looks great especially on Foot ball players

motojoe · Mar 26, 2010

Dave Hill's behind the scenes video really showed a lot about how he shoots each element separately. Check it out!

090417 Girl on an Adventure - Behind the Scenes on Vimeo

Forgot to mention this earlier: When shooting an HDR handheld, the way that you hold your camera is so important. It seems really basic, but I see people holding cameras in ways that don't promote stability so often. Here's another good vid:

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDsx3-FWfwk"]YouTube - Joe McNally - Da Grip[/ame]

JeffieLove · Mar 26, 2010

The biggest thing I see...

On the guy in the middle and the guy to the left of the frame... their arms are a little bit blurry right at the bottom of the frame... I am guessing that is from either doing handheld or them moving a bit while taking the shots for the HDR... I'm not sure how it would look if you crop it out, but I would see if there is something you can do for that?